A Winsun Heights unit was sold but the other 4 apartments auctioned at Ray White City Apartments today were passed in.

A brand new dual-key unit in the Park Residences (pictured), comprising 2 studios, was passed in after one bid followed by a much higher vendor indicator bid. Park Residences, a Conrad Properties Ltd development, sits between St Patrick’s Square & Albert St, across the street from the ANZ Centre & diagonally opposite the Stamford Plaza Hotel.

3 of the 4 apartments auctioned at Ray White City Apartments today were sold under the hammer, one with a condition on the transaction.

2 of the sold units have leaky issues, including one in HarbourCity, the one with a condition that the buyer’s solicitor check the contract. The building’s body corporate & majority of owners (excluding the owner of unit 22G at the top) filed a claim in 2014 against Auckland Council & 11 contractors alleging apartments were suffering from building defects that were causing leaks & damage to the units & common property.

The other leaky building, at St Lukes, has issues of leaks & structural soundness.

Argosy Property Ltd has settled the sale of a Wellington property and entered into an unconditional agreement to sell the bulk retail centre it owns in St Lukes, Auckland.

The agreed price of $31 million for 7 & 7A Wagener Place, St Lukes, is a 13% premium on its 28 February book value of $27.4 million. Settlement is scheduled for July.

The St Lukes property – across Wagener Place from the Westfield St Lukes mall – has a net lettable area of 7056m². It began trading in 2006 in a converted 1960s industrial building. A new building for The Warehouse was added in 2010.

The sale of 14 Tunnel Grove in Wellington was for $2.825 million.

Argosy chief executive Peter Mence said of the St Lukes deal: “The market for commercial real estate remains attractive for long-term investors divesting real estate. The sale presents an opportunity to reduce our retail exposure in an area where there will be increasing competition. It allows us to keep delivering on our strategy and we will reinvest the proceeds into other brownfield development opportunities across the portfolio.”

Published 17 November 2017, updated 27 November 2017
Just one of the 6 apartments auctioned at Ray White City Apartments on 16 November was sold under the hammer. Within a week, however, the 2 units in Sugartree’s Centro block were both sold (one conditionally).

The one initial sale, of a unit in the Spencer on Byron in Takapuna where there are remediation expenses, followed a contest between 4 bidders.

There were also multiple bidders for the 2 units in stage 2 of the Sugartree development at the top of Nelson St, Centro, on the western edge of the cbd, where off-the-plan buyers took ownership last month. However, bidding on both petered out short of the reserve.

Spencer on Byron, 9-17 Byron Avenue, unit 1106:Features: 48m², fully furnished one bedroom, double balconyOutgoings: rates $1178/year including gst; body corp levy $3140/year, the vendor has assigned any recovery from remediation legal action to the buyer and the unit has been sold on an “as is, where is” basisOutcome: sold for $275,000Agents: James Mairs & Gillian Gibson

An Onehunga warehouse sale started Barfoot & Thompson’s regular weekly commercial & apartments auction on a strong footing yesterday, but the entire residential auction market has been much weaker for months.

The apartments segment of the Thursday morning auction saw 2 of the 7 cbd apartments sold under the hammer, one of them a certainty in an auction brought forward.

Over 2 days, of the 26 intensive residential properties I logged (including cross-leases at only one of 3 auction sessions), 7 were sold at auction and one shortly after. 8 attracted no bid, and 2 were withdrawn from auction.

The intensive segment of the market covers a wide spread of homes, from apartments in the city centre to houses on cross-leased sites in suburbia. The steadiest part of that market is the supply of traditional brick & tile suburban units, on either ground level or one up, usually with the parking that many apartments don’t offer, and with less likelihood of the horrendous costs incurred in remediation when leaks are discovered.

Vodafone NZ Ltd has told its landlord, a 51:49 joint venture between the Goodman Property Trust and the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, it won’t be renewing its lease on the Vodafone Building on Fanshawe St when it expires in April 2017.

Trust manager Goodman (NZ) Ltd’s chief executive, John Dakin, said today the 13,932m² building opposite Victoria Park would be one of very few opportunities available for large corporate occupiers seeking prominent business premises in 2017.

Mercer Interiors manager buys division

Mercer Group Ltd has entered into an unconditional agreement to sell its interiors division to an entity majority-owned by the division’s general manager, Ivan Ramsey.

Mr Ramsey’s $2.15 million purchase (subject to customary adjustments) includes fixed assets and the lease of the Christchurch manufacturing site, and relevant employees will stay with the interiors business.

$1.25 million is payable on the completion date, the balance in 2 equal instalments on the first & second anniversaries of the completion date, 2 February 2016.

Mercer chief executive Richard Rookes said the sale was a further step in the restructuring of the group, following sale of the medical division in October: “Mercer can now focus on its core business & its new vision, which is to design & supply innovative food-processing & packaging systems to the world. With the relocation of the head office to our premises in Christchurch in the first quarter of 2016, the restructuring will be largely complete and we can focus on growing our core business.”

Mr Ramsey said: “We look forward to growing the interiors business with exciting new products from Wilsonart and our NZ-manufactured sink range during 2016 & beyond.”

In a second transaction, Mercer has acquired 25% of Titan Slicer Ltd for a nominal $1 and now owns 100%. The Titan operations will move from Nelson to Mercer’s headquarters in Christchurch in the first quarter of 2016.

Goodman joint venture unconditional on Daldy St building

Goodman (NZ) Ltd confirmed yesterday that the joint-venture purchase of the office building being developed in the Viaduct Quarter for Datacom was unconditional.

Fletcher Building Ltd will hand over the 16,735m² building – on the corner of Gaunt & Daldy Sts in the Wynyard Quarter’s VXV Precinct – when it completes construction in March 2017. The $86.2 million acquisition is being made by Wynyard Precinct Holdings Ltd, the joint venture between the Goodman Property Trust & Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC.

Argosy Property Ltd said yesterday it had entered into an unconditional agreement to sell the industrial property at Wagener Place, St Lukes, for $10.5 million, and the Storage King business that occupies the property for $500,000.

Chief executive Peter Mence said settlement was due in March. Argosy had classified the property as non-core. The company has sold $36.1 million of properties this financial year.

Committee chair Linda Cooper said in a release yesterday the company had an existing consent to extend the mall, granted in 2011, and the latest application made some amendments & additions to it, including the replacement of rooftop parking above the consented mall and expanding retail areas.

She said the effects in the application were considered less than minor: “The proposal is in line with the St Lukes concept plan, which was developed following extensive public consultation.

“The proposal will have a height & separation distance to neighbouring properties that will avoid dominance, amenity or shadowing effects for neighbours. It also considers all traffic aspects and does not anticipate additional parking demands on surrounding roads.”

The committee has appointed independent commissioners to decide the outcome of the resource consent application.

Scentre Group New Zealand development executive David Drew said the concept plan was originally recommended by independent commissioners, subsequently approved by the council and the St Lukes Residents Association, and was now part of the operative district plan.

One thing not decided is the start of development: “We are still masterplanning and no decisions have been made as to the timing of any development at St Lukes.”

Committee conclusions

The hearings committee said it determined overall effects would be minor on the basis that they would be within the envelope expected by the concept plan introduced by plan change 34, and the mitigation works & assessment criteria.

Onsite parking will be increased by 1479 spaces to 3497 spaces.

The committee said staged construction & staged opening of new tenancies would reduce offsite parking effects.

On requests for public input, the committee said: “The concept plan reflects that past input by setting out the expectations around the level & location of the expansion, roading improvements and mitigation & urban design considerations. In following the broad direction of the concept plan, the application does not introduce unforeseen adverse effects or raise any other matter not contemplated by the concept plan.

“Therefore it is unlikely further information or debate from possible submitters that could like improve the quality of decision-making necessary at the section 104 (Resource Management Act) stage will be elicited.”

Westfield (the Scentre predecessor) got a plan change in 2012 to rezone land adjoining the shopping centre & owned by it to business 8, and enabling the company to double the maximum gross floor area to 92,500m², including 15,000m² for offices.

Auckland Council’s hearings committee went into closed meeting today to decide whether Scentre (NZ) Ltd’s application to increase the gross floor area of the St Lukes mall to 77,013m² should be publicly notified.

Cllr Cathy Casey, giving her voice to local opposition to the original plan change in 2010 and again at later stages, wanted to know the legal basis for making the deliberations confidential but got no explanation from committee chair Linda Cooper.

Planning consultant Andrew Wilkinson said in his report on the application for the council that impacts of the near-doubling of the mall’s footprint would be no more than minor and it needn’t be either notified or limited notified (to named parties).

Albert-Eden ward councillor Casey (able to take part in the open debate though not a member of the committee) and local board member Graeme Easte both insisted the impact on an already congested road network would be considerable, which should make the application notified.

However, Mr Wilkinson said completion of the western ring route in early 2017, through the tunnels & interchange connecting State Highway 20 to State Highway 16 at Waterview, would bring a critical reduction in traffic on the existing road network.

Planning consultant Vaughan Smith, for Scentre, said St Lukes had been developed at a time when totally inward-facing malls were considered acceptable. Private plan change 8 rezoned land adjoining the shopping centre & owned by Scentre predecessor Westfield (NZ) Ltd to business 8, and enabled Westfield (and now Scentre) to double the maximum gross floor area to 92,500m², including 15,000m² for offices. It would also become a more open centre.

Mr Smith said appeals were all resolved through mediation before getting to the Environment Court. Although Cllr Casey said mayor Len Brown had quieted initial opposition by saying critics would get their chance during the resource consent process, Mr Smith disagreed that there was an expectation the application would be notified.

He said it was always intended that a series of resource consents would be required, and that controlled or restricted discretionary activities would be considered without notification. “The things that pushed this into a discretionary status were relatively minor,” he said.

He added: “The scale of development in this application is envisaged in the district plan and concept plan for this site…. There was no requirement [to consult on resource consents] and no consultation. For the plan change there was a lot of consultation.”

This consent application is for combined stages 4-5 of the development.

Hearing panel appointments:

The hearing committee also appointed commissioners today to hear 2 other urban applications plus a variation for the Te Muri regional park:

About Bob Dey Property

The Bob Dey Property website is primarily about commercial & development property in Auckland, policies & strategies that impact on the sector, listed property securities and wider economic influences. It examines infrastructure, access & urban design issues, and presents ideas from around the world. The emphasis is on appropriate depth & context.